Mental health advocates in Northern Virginia are scrambling to find adequate services for sick and potentially dangerous people as funds dwindle. State cuts over the past several years have left service providers looking to local governments and to private partnerships to secure services including emergency psychiatric care and detoxification.
“The last few years have been especially challenging in terms of not cutting the things that people need,” said George Braunstein, executive director of the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board. “It’s been a scramble.”
Braunstein’s board works with county governments and neighboring jurisdictions to serve addicts, the mentally ill and the disabled in Northern Virginia.
Among the board’s top priorities in recent months has been working with Inova Health System to expand its services to include a sort of emergency room for patients with behavioral issues.
The board has also been working to ensure access to beds for people suffering severe bouts of mental illness. Northern Virginia counties have worked closely with private hospitals to secure access but have run into problems when private beds are full or when the patients are deemed a threat.
State cuts made in 2010 threatened to eliminate 19 beds at the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute on Gallows Road, but localities found money to keep those beds available through year’s end. If all goes as hoped, the eventual loss of the beds will be offset by Inova’s expanded offerings for the mentally ill.
In Fairfax, county funding has kept open drop-in centers where homeless and mentally ill patients can eat and access services.
“It’s good for them to be able to get out there and have a place to go, even though a lot of them aren’t ready yet to find jobs,” said Elaine Weadon, director of the Reston Drop-In Center, which serves about 30 people a day on a $120,000 annual budget.
Some services are lacking, however, said Michael Benz, director of Northern Virginia Payee Services Inc. Benz’s organization works with the mentally ill and other clients to manage their publicly funded income, such as Social Security and disability checks.
Services like his “are totally standard elsewhere,” Benz said. “But this is a field that [Northern Virginia] somewhat fails at.”
